"Mormon Official Ousted; First Excommunication of a Top Church Leader in Decades"
By Michelle Boorstein
"Washington Post," under "Acts of Faith"
8 August 2017
"The Mormon Church has excommunicated one of its top leaders, church officials confirmed Tuesday. It was not immediately clear why.
“'This morning, James J. Hamula was released as a General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, following Church disciplinary action by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles,' read a statement from Eric Hawkins, a spokesman.
"Hawkins declined to give details on the reason, but the 'Salt Lake Tribune' and the 'Deseret News' in Utah cited Church sources as saying it was not for 'apostasy or disillusionment.' Among the reasons the Church handbook gives for excommunicating leaders are: adultery, burglary, embezzlement, spousal abuse and 'homosexual relations.'
The 'Tribune' and the 'News' reported that Hamula was the first top authority of the Church to be excommunicated in 28 years.
"Hamula was a member of the roughly 80-member First Quorum of the Seventy. That body is just below the Church president — very roughly akin to a pope – and the Twelve Apostles. Within the Quorum, Hamula had one of the prime leadership positions; he was executive director of the Correlations Department, which oversees making sure church rules and laws are clearly communicated and kept.
"Being excommunicated means you are no longer considered part of the Mormon Church. Hamula being removed is the equivalent of a Catholic archbishop being removed from the Catholic Church, said church historian Greg Prince. Prince added that excommunications are more common in the Mormon Church, however.
"Mormons who face excommunication go before an all-male discipline board. The board who judged Hamula was made up of his high-ranking peers: the president and the Twelve Apostles.
"The 'Salt Lake Tribune' quoted from a talk Hamula gave in October 2008 to a Salt Lake audience of teenage boys, urging them to 'win the war against evil,' the report said.
“'Satan is marshaling every resource at his disposal to entice you into transgression,' he said. 'He knows that if he can draw you into transgression, he may prevent you from serving a full-time mission, marrying in the temple and securing your future children in the faith, all of which weakens not only you but the Church . . . Make no mistake about it — the focus of his war is now on you, you who seek to keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.'
"Hamula was a lawyer before he was called to his position in the First Quorum of the Seventy. He was born in California and is married with six children.
Prince said the average member of the Church wouldn’t know Hamula by name, despite his high-ranking job. That is because the leadership network has grown so much in recent decades with growth in the Church. Sixty years ago, Prince said, there were seven members of the First Quorum. The number of Church members has grown in that period from about 1 million to 15 million."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/08/08/mormon-leader-ousted-first-excommunication-of-one-of-its-leaders-in-decades/?utm_term=.2d964d55f40b_____
"Newsweek" also has turned its sites on the most probable reasons for Hamula's ouster.
"Why Did the Mormon Church Just Excommunicate a Top Official for the First Time in Decades?
By Conor Gaffey
"Newsweek"
9 August 2017
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints likes to keep its internal affairs private.
"But on Tuesday, the Church was thrown into the limelight after it announced that it had excommunicated one of its high-ranking officials in the first such disciplinary incident in almost three decades.
"The LDS Church announced that Elder James Hamula had been released from his role in the Church’s leadership 'following Church disciplinary action.” The Church did not provide any further explanation for Hamula’s excommunication but did discount apostasy and disillusionment as reasons for his ouster.
"Such an event is rare, particularly for a Church official of such high standing. Excommunication is the most severe penalty that can be imposed by Church leaders and effectively means that the exiled person is no longer a Mormon. Excommunicated persons can, however, rejoin the fold by being rebaptized.
"Hamula, 59, held the rank of General Authority in the Church, which has 15.9 million members worldwide, although more than a third are based in the United States.
"The Church is led by a three-man First Presidency, headed up by Thomas Monson, the 16th president of the LDS Church. Below the presidency is the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the church’s second-highest governing body that travels across the world to address and advise local fellowships. Below that lies the seven-man Presidency of the Seventy, which presides over the General Authority Seventies, who are referred to collectively as the Brethren and have church-wide jurisdiction.
"Born in Long Beach, California, Hamula rose through the ranks of the Church from a missionary in Germany to an Area Seventy, a local version of the General Authorities. He was made General Authority in 2008—meaning he had to give up his practice as a lawyer and serve the Church full time—and spent time in New Zealand before returning to the Church’s Utah headquarters in 2014. Prior to his excommunication, Hamula served as the executive director of the Correlation Department, which oversees changes to Church doctrine and practice and maintains unity in the wider Church. He is married with six children, according to a Church profile.
"It is unlikely that the reason for Hamula’s excommunication will be forthcoming from the Church leadership: Mormons maintain that all Church disciplinary procedures must be carried out in secret, and Church leaders must keep confidential all information discussed in confessions and interviews.
"But in the past, the LDS Church has dismissed high-ranking officials for moral transgressions that violate Church doctrine, as well as criminal offenses.
"Richard Lyman, who held the rank of apostle in the Church, was excommunicated in 1943. Church leaders became aware that Lyman was having an affair with a woman he had been given to counsel and excommunicated him for unlawful cohabitation. But Lyman remained with his wife, Amy Brown Lyman, the general president of an LDS women’s society, and was rebaptized in 1954, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
"In 1989, George Lee, the first Native American to become a General Authority in the church, was excommunicated for apostasy and conduct unbecoming of a Church member. Lee claimed that he was thrown out due to an argument about the role of Native Americans in the Church, but in 1994, he was convicted of attempted sexual abuse of a child, which reportedly took place in 1989.
"More recently, a Mormon feminist, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated in 2014 after founding a movement that advocated for the ordination of women in the all-male LDS priesthood. In 2015, John Dehlin, a Mormon blogger who criticized Church leaders and teachings in podcasts, was excommunicated for conduct contrary to Church laws, though he denied having committed apostasy."
http://www.newsweek.com/mormon-church-jesus-christ-latter-day-saints-james-hamula-648468Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2017 05:25PM by steve benson.